Top o’ the payroll to you? Anticipating restrictions on bonuses, officials at Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley are exploring ways to sidestep tough new federal caps on compensation, the Wall Street Journal said.

The Populist Champion of the Everyman is sticking up for those downtrodden, forgotten millionaires at AIG.

Andrew Sorkin writes a completely incoherent defense of paying out bonuses to AIG in the NYT. It would hardly be worth consideration were it not for the fact that it may very well be what Timothy Geithner was thinking when he negotiated the deal to pay the bonuses out in the first place:

Democratic lawmakers in Congress last week introduced legislation to create a Financial Product Safety Commission to ensure that mortgages, credit cards and retirement accounts do not pose unacceptable risks to consumers. Such a move would provide consumers with their first real protections in decades — but the effort will be far less effective if the Commission fails to use a race lens when scrutinizing financial products.

Some lawyer who looks remarkably like Greg Craig doesn’t want you to know whether or not Obama will prosecute whistleblowers.

Optimism unbounded. Reality ignored.

In the world of failures that surround the economic mess we face? One of the biggest surely has to be rushing legislation which did not have the requisite safeguards, checks and balances in place prior to disbursement of funds.

Another contender? Has to be failure to look at big picture clues on how “creative accounting” had seeped into every pore of business operation from Enron forward, and

• The POTUS better get on it, and fast.
• I don’t think ‘limits’ is what we’re looking for.
• Oops.
• Double jeopardy?
• Show us some drama, Obama.
• A criminal conspiracy.
• White House to Sanford: stimulate this.
• Our nation of unserious defeatists.
• Bircher literature on Fox News.
• MC Steele’s latest hit — plus a bonus track.

Richard Cohen reminds you to try the veal.

New video from Kansas City’s SSION, Bullshit. Pretty well sums up the days news in a nutshell. Don’t forget there are things you can do. Teddy has a fine action post detailing how you may join folks all over the country who are ready to take back the economy. And don’t forget firedoglake will be delivering our petition to Congress when Barney Frank’s House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing